


The Fall

by pnkrathian



Category: Portal
Genre: Descrpitions of gore, Drama, Headcanon, Human AU, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pre-Canon, Psychological Horror, Romance, Strong Language, Trigger warning for doctors/medical procedures, Violence, alcoholism tw, mild nudity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 01:11:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pnkrathian/pseuds/pnkrathian
Summary: Craig Maren is a doctor working for Aperture Laboratories: a company who has made many big advances in several scientific fields, but has very dark means of achieving them.  Craig is compliant in Aperture's corruption, but being assigned to care for a new subject by the name of Rick changes everything.  As they become closer, Craig finds himself falling for Rick, which presents a direct conflict with his morals, his profession, and even, their lives.  Craig must now find a way to choose between upholding Aperture's horrifying dark secrets for money, or to escape and bring Aperture to an end in order to save himself and Rick.





	1. Meet the Doctor

Consciousness transfer is a gruesome but delicate process. Only the doctors who worked with the most precise hands could be trusted to merge the barrier between organic and inorganic life. The job was one of the highest “honors” that the management of Aperture Laboratories could bestow to someone; the transfer of a human consciousness into data that could be stored in a machine, a living machine. The position was so celebrated because, even though it did cost a large amount of money to perform, it always generated massive profits that exponentially outweighed the costs. Sponsors, and private donors alike all saw what Aperture had to offer; artificial intelligence. They were amazed by what they were presented with, and decided to become financial supporters of the company’s astounding and groundbreaking “research”.

  
Of course, the true nature of A.I. creation was kept from anyone outside of Aperture’s highest positions of corporate power, for if the secret escaped, the company would be done for, and all of their immense profits would be lost.

  
To make a new life, another must be sacrificed.

  
A human was needed first, a live one. Anyone could be a viable candidate for the process. The person is taken to the most restricted-access lab in the facility, never willingly, and anesthetized. To prepare the person for the process, their head is completely shaved, and they are placed face-down in an operating apparatus that was specially engineered for this procedure. Various tubes are inserted into the body at the sites of major arteries, which are hooked to a respirator. The respirator circulates a very rich supply of oxygen through the subject’s body, in order to keep their precious neurons from deteriorating during the process. Incision points are marked on the back of the person’s skull, as well as down the middle of their back. A circular saw is used to remove the entire back and top portions of the head, to reveal most of the brain. Another large incision is made on the back, where the person’s skin can be peeled back to reveal the spinal cord. A mesh made of micronodes is then applied to the surface of the brain and the spinal cord. When activated. The nodes branch into the interior of the organs and record the electrical signals in them, which is converted into digital data that is sent to a port, which contains a memory chip. This is how a human conscience can be removed from the body and inserted into a computer. Since the procedure requires a large amount of energy to be removed from the central processing organs, the person is killed as a result.

  
Aperture’s management took very special precautions to prevent discovery of their actions outside of their highest-order personnel. They chose their victims very carefully; these people were usually ones with little to no social impression, people whose absence would barely be noticed by others. They were usually pulled from the large pool of employees that had jobs in the lowest castes of Aperture’s workforce. That included simple office workers, janitors, mailroom personnel, etc. Additionally, test subjects were a goldmine of ‘loners’ and ‘nobodies’ for a greedy scientist to pick from. People were taken in for consciousness transfer not incredibly often enough so that other workers would notice, but they were still taken at a rate that was relatively frequent.

  
After each transfer ends, the victim’s body is cremated. The ashes are mixed with hazardous waste that is to be driven out of the facility and disposed of, as to take another step to cover up the evidence. Additionally, the collected memories from each victim are masked so that, once transferred into a core, they cannot remember anything that they went through that would expose the company. The only portion of their personhood left is a trait or two that is programmed to be amplified to the point where it becomes the new robot’s entire personality. So far, this method had proved to work very well; Aperture had been able to keep this up for over a decade and a half, and the profits they received from creating these A.I.’s were enormous.  
A group of people that were very much benefitted from the money was the team of scientists themselves that had the duty of performing the consciousness transfers. They were a very small, mixed group of A.I. specialists and doctors who were in it more for the money than any possible “research” that they would conduct. All of the people in the group were older, more experienced men. The youngest of them all was only thirty-five; he was a doctor by the name of Craig Maren.

  
Craig was a very reclusive kind of person. His relations with the other scientists in the group were for business and business only; he never talked to them much outside of matters of their work. However, that did not stop him from having a considerable presence in his team. Craig liked to have everything he did to be precise and ordered. To have that, he also needed partners that were orderly as well. The rest of the scientists considered him to be one of the integral ‘leaders’ of the team in terms of keeping their procedures precise, even if he was pushy about it sometimes. Well, even if he was pushy about it more than sometimes.

  
Craig’s desire for perfection applied to more than just his work life. When getting ready for his day, his ginger hair had to be combed in a neat and orderly swoop, his beard was kept short and was never allowed to grow anywhere else but his chin, and his sideburns were always shaved to about one inch from his jawline, no more, no less. Craig always kept his glasses perfectly polished, his clothes ironed to a ‘T’, and his body always as clean as it could be. He kept his house spotless, even though he rarely had guests over. It was hard work, but he preferred it this way; to him, a messy, disordered life was no life worth living.

  
However, despite his desire for perfection, Craig was a man who was, in reality, very, very far from perfect. He was left stressed from work perpetually. The strain often left him finding a release through alcohol. From his fortune, Craig had acquired quite the large collection of very fine wines. He found himself getting drunk on them frequently, even on nights when he was very desperately trying to avoid his stress-induced urge to drink. The mornings after were when he would still try his best to put on a show of false perfection, but his shortcomings were not easily disguised. Craig’s face would be shadowed with orange stubble where it was usually cleanly shaved, his eyes were sunken and dark, he was shaky, and he was, unconsciously, a little less respectful towards his colleagues than he usually was. Now matter how hard he tried to pull himself together, he could not perform a consciousness transfer effectively in that state, for it would compromise his position with the company.

  
Thankfully, consciousness transfers were not the job that Craig performed the most often. His “normal” job was that of a residential doctor for test subjects. He was required to constantly perform health checks on them, for testing was a dangerous endeavor, not only because of the intense physical endurance required to solve one, but also because whatever was in those gels that aided subjects in the tests was obviously not good for the body. Craig couldn’t even count the number of times he’d treated a subject for a mild poisoning of some sort anymore. He had been thinking about talking to the management about somehow fixing that; it was getting to be ridiculous.

  
In addition to watching over current test subjects, Craig’s job was also to certify that new, prospective subjects were physically fit enough to partake in testing. That included a normal health check up, plus other, more extensive procedures such as physical strength and endurance tests, as well as tests to see how immune to asbestos they were. If they passed the checkup and the tests, they would be admitted into Aperture’s testing program, and be categorized into a group of specific subjects that had Craig as their assigned doctor.

  
Today, Craig was given the entry form of a new person who was looking to participate in testing. He thought nothing of it, new subjects were not an uncommon occurrence. The file was dropped on to his desk by an assistant, as forms designated for him usually were. Upon its arrival, Craig took the papers out of the folder and perused them. The profile of the hopeful subject was that of an ex-marine named Rick Oo’oki. His height and weight were above average; 6 feet 6 inches and over 300 pounds. Craig inferred that it was likely that he would not make the cut, for, in his eyes, the bigger people he examined were always the clumsiest, and the ones who cared the least about how they performed the tasks he gave them. He looked through the profile some more, to gain more insight on the man’s appearance, since no picture was provided in the paperwork. According to the data, Rick was a green-eyed, black-haired, 35 year-old man who came all the way from Hawaii to have his chance at becoming a test subject for the company. Additionally, Craig saw that their appointment together was scheduled for Friday, at 10:30 in the morning. Today was Monday, and he was relieved that the department had finally listened to his complaints about not giving him much of a heads-up before the scheduled dates of these appointments. Craig felt less pressured, now that he had more time to prepare for these things.

  
He then neatly put the files back in their folder, and put it in a cabinet full of other various sets of patient data, wrote a reminder of the appointment into his computer as well as in his planner, and went back to work. Thoughts of the man he was to examine did not cross Craig’s mind much until the day of the appointment, as expected. He had no idea that the aftermath of this appointment would change him, for good.


	2. Meet the Patient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the day to see if prospective test subject Rick Oo’oki is fit for the Aperture Science Testing Initiative (If he doesn’t annoy the hell out of Craig first).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the long awaited Chapter 2! I hope you enjoy it, and don’t forget to leave feedback!

By the time that Friday rolled around, Craig felt exhausted. The week had been packed with appointments because of a new test chamber that was proving to be particularly disastrous for the subjects; apparently repulsion gels, weighted storage cubes, and fire were not a good combination for studying the human body’s endurance. Craig never wanted to examine another burn again.

  
He thought this as he walked the halls of Aperture’s medical ward, a place rarely seen by anyone other than doctors, nurses, interns, janitors, and wounded test subjects. Craig was thankful for the short break he would get over the weekend; he could use the time to straighten up his yard for the spring. But then, he was reminded that he had another two appointments with prospective subjects next week to fit in with the schedule he already had, as well as another consciousness transfer to plan for within the next couple of weeks. Some of the stress came back to him, and he felt like he needed a glass of wine. Craig was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost didn’t notice the touch of someone’s hand on his shoulder.

  
Slightly spooked, he stopped and turned around to see his medical team’s leader, Dr. Leonard Donovan, with a calm smile on his wrinkled face.

  
“Maren!” Donovan said in a friendly, but powerful tone, “What’s the hurry? You act like you’ve been entered into a race! You don’t want to run over all the nurses in the hallway, do you?”

  
“Oh, I-,” Craig stuttered as he tried to find his words, “I’m sorry, sir. I’m just trying to get to an appointment on time.”

  
“Ah. Another one of those burn victims from Chamber 83?”

  
“Thankfully, no. It’s just a prospective subject.”

  
“Well, good luck with that then!” Donovan smiled as he clapped Craig on the shoulder, “It'll be nice to see some fresh meat, especially for an old, stale cut such as myself.”

  
“Yes, thank you…,” Craig sighed as he began to walk away. He trusted Donovan as a colleague and as his boss, but there was always something about him that made him feel a bit… unnerved. Maybe it was the fact that Donovan was one of the oldest and most respected scientists in the facility, who happened to have a strange fondness for him that he didn’t quite understand yet. He had worked for Aperture since the 60’s, and had gotten to know and collaborate with the company’s founder, Cave Johnson, himself. Over the years, Donovan had been able to procure millions for leading all of Aperture’s medical department, as well as the obscure team of specialists in charge of consciousness transfer that they both belonged to. He was a “legend” to most people in the facility, and was one of the last remainders of Johnson’s original team of scientists that led Aperture in it’s true glory days. Craig couldn’t think of a single reason why an Aperture “celebrity” like him would take such an interest in a relatively inexperienced colleague.

  
As he walked away, Donovan called out to him once more;   
“You know, you shouldn’t be so formal with me all the time, Maren! So much ‘sir’ this and ‘sir’ that! Lighten up a little!”

  
“Alright…,” Craig answered. He always thought his boss was an odd man. Anyways, he continued the walk to his appointment. He grabbed the subject’s papers, which were still in his office, and verified with his secretary that the man was already checked in. Once finished, Craig thanked her and headed down the hallway toward his examination room. To refresh his mind on the patient’s name, he glanced at the files in his hand. ‘Rick Oo’oki,’ the document read. ‘Rick’ wasn’t a hard name to remember, thankfully.

  
The room was almost at the end of the hallway. When he finally got there, Craig straightened himself up, organized his papers in his hand, then opened the door. Inside he saw what was likely the largest, most intimidating man he had ever seen in his life. He had seen many a tough face amongst his test subjects, but none of them were like this one. Calling him ‘large’ would be an understatement. The man’s shoulders were incredibly broad, and his arms and legs were stocky and muscular. His large, padded pecs were well-outlined by his testing uniform, and a large gut made of both copious amounts of fat and muscle sat underneath them. It seemed like he had the physique of a grizzly bear.

  
“Hello,” Craig greeted him, almost stuttering, “How are you this morning, uh- Rick, isn’t it?”

  
The other man grinned in response.

  
“Yeah, that’s me!” He chuckled, “And yer Dr.- Maris?”

  
“Maren.”

  
“Aw, close enough. Nice to meet ‘ya!”

  
Rick then stretched out his hand for Craig to shake, and he hesitated a little to take it. When he did, it was so large, it almost felt like he was holding on to a baseball mitt. Afterwards, He took a seat in his chair and readied a clipboard for taking notes.

  
“It’s a damn crazy place ya got here!” Rick noted, rubbing the back of his neck, “I didn’t know it was this huge! I thought it was just gonna be a small lab with a couple a’ treadmills and maybe an obstacle course. Y’all got a pretty bigass operation!”

  
“Yes, we’ve been developing our technology for decades,” Craig said as he donned a pair of latex gloves, “We need a large facility for our many departments. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to make all the advancements we’ve already accomplished.”

  
“Jeez! I guess so!” Rick chuckled.

  
“Alright, I’m going to need you to sit on the exam table,” Craig dictated, “I’m going to start you off with a basic health checkup.”

  
Rick got up from his chair, which revealed how truly massive of a person he was. Craig wasn’t standing that close to him, but he still felt that he needed to take a few steps away from him, his presence was that enormous. Once Rick was settled, Craig took the clipboard from his desk, and readied his pen.

  
“So, Mr. Oo’oki.” He questioned, “Does your family have any history of genetic diseases? Such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease?”

  
“Uh yeah, yeah,” Rick began, “I think ma’ gramma died of some sorta weird heart problem. Or it coulda been cancer. I… I think she had both? No, no, wait…”

  
Rick paused to ponder the subject for a moment again when he resumed;

  
“Nah, it was my _ma’s_ ma who died ‘cause a lung cancer. She always smoked a ton! And my dad’s ma died ‘cause a some heart stuff!”

  
“...Okay,” Craig sighed as he scratched off what he had written earlier, and filled in the new, correct information. This man didn’t seem like he was taking this seriously. He seemed to be very caught up in his own thoughts, and a bit too laid back than most of the other test subjects. Craig predicted that he wasn’t going to make cut, for brute strength alone was not good enough criteria for qualification. Feeling like this appointment would end up becoming a waste of his time, he then resumed;

  
“Alright. Do you have any allergies? Specifically to any kinds of medicines?”

  
“I ain’t allergic to nothin’ but cats and mushrooms. Good thing I hate both, right?”

Rick chuckled as he leaned back a little into a posture that was even more unprofessional. Craig almost didn’t want to write down his information, but forced himself to anyway. The more he complied with this man, the quicker the appointment would be over.

  
“I see from your records that, thankfully, your vaccines are up to date,” Craig began as he flipped through the documents on his clipboard, “But regulation still calls that I ask if you have been afflicted with any sort of illness within the past two months. This includes literally anything from a minor cold, to sexually transmitted diseases, to heart attacks.”

  
“Well,” Rick began with the most stupid, smug look on his face, “I do get a whole lotta action, if ya know what I mean! Not a lot ‘a people can resist this!”

  
He cockily flexed one of his arms as he spoke. If Craig had no self-restraint, he would have slapped him in the face and sent him out of the appointment by now. But then, Rick resumed;

  
“Nah, I ain’t got no STD’s though. All I got was food poisonin’ last month from some Mexican place. Damn, I didn’t get no sleep at all that night because I was on th-“

  
“That’s sufficient enough information!” Craig interrupted before Rick could plant any unpleasant images in his mind. His teeth were almost gritted as he wrote down the last bit of data on his clipboard, set it down on the desk, and took a tongue depressor from a jar nearby. He regained a bit of his cool and began;

  
“We’re going to start the actual physical now. Open wide, I am going to check your mouth and throat first.”

  
Rick gaped his jaws as wide as he could, and Craig pressed the piece of wood on top of his tongue, to gain a glimpse of his throat. When he shined his light in, nothing appeared to be wrong. He then moved on to testing his pupil reflexes, which would assure the proper function of the unconscious functions of the brain. When shining a light on Rick’s vivid, jade colored eyes, his pupils contracted to little black dots, and dilated back to normal when the light was removed. Craig marked that test as ‘passed’.

  
He continued with the man’s exam with relative speed. He tested Rick’s reflexes, took a blood sample, examined his weight compared to his muscle mass, listened and felt for abnormalities in his heart and in his guts, and examined his back for any signs of spinal deformity. Craig had a bit more difficulty examining his neck area, because every time he would put his hands there, Rick would scrunch up and giggle like an idiot; apparently, he was ticklish in the neck. This aggravated Craig extremely, but he kept his cool and eventually got Rick to let him feel for abnormalities in that area, which he found none of. Besides having mildly high blood pressure, Rick was an extremely healthy man, and passed the physical with flying colors.

  
Rick celebrated with a big “Hell yeah!” In response to learning about the results. However, his trials were not over yet. Rick still needed to complete the endurance test, which involved Craig monitoring all of his vital signs as he ran on a treadmill for a fixed period of time, with no breaks for rest. Testing could be very demanding to the body, and one would need much endurance to complete one, let alone many in a row.

  
Craig led Rick into a room behind the examination area, which had a treadmill set up next to a computer. Coming out of the computer were large masses of wires that connected to nodes that would be attached to different places all over Rick’s body as he ran.

  
“What the hell are these things?” Rick questioned as he picked a node up, “Looks like some shit outta an alien movie!”

  
“I am going to use these to measure your vitals as you run,” Craig said, still slightly annoyed at his lack of seriousness, “So I would appreciate if you could stand as still as possible as I put them on you. We don’t want to have faulty results that could jeopardize your position in the program, now do we?”

  
“Alright,” Rick chuckled, “Yer the boss, freckles.”

  
Craig froze. _Freckles_? What kind of lack of respect did this man have to think it was appropriate to give someone he barely knew some sort of stupid nickname? If he weren’t so scrawny and if he didn’t have a job to keep, he was so angry, he would’ve literally kicked Rick out by now. Also… were his freckles really that noticeable? Craig felt like he needed a glass of wine again.

  
“Doc?” Rick said smugly, pulling the other man out of his pause.

  
“Just let me get these nodes on you.” Craig grumbled, and pulled a bunch of wires from hooks on the wall. Eventually, Rick was covered in wires, and ready to go on the treadmill. Once he was situated, Craig called out to him;

  
“Alright, I’m going to start the machine soon, and you will have to run over the course of a half hour over different intervals of speed and elevation. This is a test of endurance, so you will get no breaks. Are you ready?”

  
“What’re we waitin’ for?” Rick smiled back, and gave him a thumbs up. Excited to hopefully see the man struggle, he started the treadmill. It was slow at first, a jogging pace. Rick kept up easily. But soon after, Craig turned up the speed. Rick would run a few minutes at a higher pace, then come back down to something a little slower for a short amount of time. The faster the treadmill got, the more it seemed to throw Rick off. Already 10 minutes in, he was panting heavily and drenched in sweat. Craig thought that this test might break him, he looked so ready to give up. However, he still managed to keep himself running. Rick seemed to become very focused on continuing, especially towards the end of the test. When the trial finally had only a minute to spare, Craig turned up the treadmill to the highest speed setting; this was the part that usually tripped most prospective subjects up. Rick moved his thick legs as fast as he could, huffing and panting as his body tried to cool him with immense amounts of perspiration. Despite the stress that the running put him under, the exhausted man sprinted for a full minute until he felt the treadmill begin to slow. Craig was a bit annoyed, but slightly impressed that such a large man could run that fast and that much.

  
“You’ve passed the endurance test, Mr Oo’oki,” Craig sighed.

  
“Whoo!” Rick huffed, pumping his fist in the air as he buckled over to catch his breath, “How’d ya like that? The marines didn’t put me through training hell fer nothin’!”

  
“Don’t get so excited, you have one more test left,” Craig told him as he came to remove the nodes, “Wait here and rest as I process the data the computer gathered.”

  
“Will do,” Rick smiled as he plopped down into a nearby chair. Craig rolled his eyes at his arrogance, and sat down at the computer to run the node data for analysis. All of the man’s vitals worked well as he ran, but that still did not mean that he would make the cut. The next and final test was the intelligence and problem-solving exam. Solving puzzles using the brain’s ingenuity was the core element to testing. The exam Craig was about to give Rick was a written one full of interesting word and picture problems designed by Aperture to test the limits of the brain’s essential problem-solving skills. Most prospective subjects failed the test, and Craig felt that Rick would be no exception, given the lack of seriousness he had for this whole operation. And if he failed, Craig would not have to deal with him ever again. He relished in the thought.

  
A few minutes later, he took a scantron sheet and a test packet out of the computer desk, and gave it to Rick.

  
“Here is your final test,” He began, now with a bit of a smug look on _his_ face, “It will examine your problem-solving skills that will be essential to you if you desire to become a test subject for our company. You have an hour to complete the exam, and you must mark all your answers on the scantron sheet. When you are done, give both papers to me.”

  
“Sweet,” Rick said as he grabbed the packets out of Craig’s hands. The other man then led him back into the first exam room, and made him sit at the desk. He started the timer, and left Rick to himself. He then returned to the computer in the treadmill room to finish organizing Rick’s data, excited to receive the test from him and eventually see the defeated look on his face as he told him he didn’t make the cut, all because he failed the written portion. It would be a metaphorical slap to his stupid, cocky little face. Craig chuckled to himself at the thought.

  
About forty-five minutes later, Craig heard a knock on the exam room door, and saw Rick open it.

  
“Hey doc!” He called obnoxiously, “I’m done!”

  
“That was quick,” Craig said as he came over to the door and took the papers, “I’ll have your results in a few minutes, wait in there, please.”

  
Rick complied, and Craig took the sheets back to his computer, where he had a scantron machine. He started it up, and ran the man’s test paper through it. After another minute of processing, the results beeped on his computer screen. It said;

  
82%: PASS.

  
Craig stared at the machine. Maybe there was an error. The average for most test subjects that passed was 74%. Rick couldn’t possibly be that above average. He ran the sheet through the machine again. It read;

  
82%: PASS.

  
No. _No_. Maybe there was something wrong with the machine. Craig ran diagnostics on it, waiting nervously for results. After a few minutes, the computer spawned a message that said that the scantron was working perfectly. Still in denial, Craig put the test back for analysis, just to be absolutely sure. Once more, the machine read;

  
82%: PASS.

  
Craig wanted to yell in frustration. This couldn’t be possible. How could such a man with a lack of serious nature like Rick be smart enough to pass the problem-solving exam with an above-average score? Craig opened the test packet for signs of answers written by previous test-takers. There were none, and there was no evidence of erase marks, either. Craig put his face in his hands and groaned quietly, trying to calm himself down, even though he knew he was about to be stuck with this idiot for only god knew how long.

  
After a few minutes, he got up, took his papers in his hands, adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and headed for the exam room door. He opened it, and saw Rick inside, looking up at him anxiously.

  
“Congratulations, Mr. Oo’oki,” Craig sighed with defeat, “Welcome to the Aperture Science Testing Initiative.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summer is nice, isn’t it?


	3. The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's is Rick's first day of testing. What happens may surprise you.

It had been two weeks since Rick, the overly cocky and foolish prospective test subject, got accepted into the Aperture Science Testing Initiative. He had spent the past few weeks moving into Aperture’s private quarters and training; today was the day that he was finally going to step out onto the testing track. Craig had been dreading it. The morning of Rick’s testing debut, Craig sat in his office, nervously organizing papers, unable to shake the feeling that if Rick acted like he did during his screening appointment, he would become the laughingstock of his colleagues for letting in such an idiot. He was so nervous that earlier, he had spilled an entire mug of piping hot coffee on himself, singeing his poor belly and chest through his clothes and causing him to screech like a banshee in front of his assistant. Craig hadn’t brought a change of clothes with him to work, so he just wore his lab coat over his stained shirt, even though he didn’t need to wear it.

Just before Rick was set to start his first test later that morning, Craig was fidgeting in his seat in the observation area of the chamber, still a little sore from his coffee fiasco. To calm himself down, he looked at the chamber. It was relatively simple, the goal was to carry a cube to an incinerator opening on the other side of the chamber, while dodging two turrets on the way. Before Craig knew it, a buzzer sounded in the room, which indicated that Rick was about to be brought in. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and carefully took out his pen and his clipboard as the other scientists did the same. The elevator rose into the room, and out stepped Rick, with a look of awe on his face at the sheer size of the chamber, portal gun in hand. He then saw the window to the observation area, with Craig sitting inside. He waved at him. Craig sighed, and pressed the intercom button in front of him to address the man in the chamber;

“Good morning. Your goal to complete this test is to transport a weighted storage cube to an incinerator chute located somewhere in this room, with minimal injury. Good luck.”

“Alright, gorgeous,” Rick chuckled through the communication microphone attached to his jumpsuit, “I’m rearin’ ta’ put on a big show fer y’all, ‘specially you, doc!”

Craig just sat there. What did he just call him?

“Quick thing, though,” Rick said again, “I jus’ can’t perform that good lookin’ like this.” Before Craig could say anything, the man in the chamber began to take off his jumpsuit. And his boots. And his tank top. And the rest of his clothes. He stood there triumphantly, ready to run the test in the nude. Craig’s hands scrambled for the intercom wildly.

“What the hell are you doing?!?” He screeched as his colleagues mumbled in disbelief around him. He was so mortified, this man that he and he alone had approved to enter the testing program was making a fool of himself in front of his most trusted peers.

“I don’t need any of this fancy testin’ equipment shit,” Rick laughed through his microphone, which was the only part of his uniform that he kept, “I reach my peak when I’m in a more natural state, sweetheart. Watch me friggin’ destroy this test, Rick style!” Rick then got a wild look in his eyes, grabbed the cube with the gun, and began sprinting wildly across the chamber floor, with no protection whatsoever. Craig and the other scientists just stood there, dumbfounded, saying nothing, as the sound of Rick’s feet hitting the ground and the sound of his asscheeks clapping against each other sounded through the microphone. The sound was so loud that the turrets noticed him before he even crossed their lazers. They began to shoot at him, but as they did, he kept on running, and pushed his large muscle belly out. The bullets bounced off his chunky gut and left no scratch; Rick was just that powerful when naked and unhindered by the oppressive bounds of clothing. Once past the turrets, he shot a portal up to the top of a tall ledge, where the incinerator chute was. He stood up there, triumphantly, and paused before he was about to open the chute, looking up at all the scientists again, especially Craig.

“Told y’all I could do it,” the man said, with a shit-eating grin on his face. He then slammed his fist on the button next to him, exposing the hot, dry breath of the incinerator. “This cube burnin’ goes out ta’-“ Rick began, but was cut short, because his bare feet slipped on the white tile of the chamber. He stumbled backwards, tripping over the edge of the chute. Losing his footing, his bare body plummeted into the incinerator, and it closed on him. Nothing came from the microphone except for static. There were screams of horror from the observation area, as Craig frantically slammed an emergency button, which opened a portal from there to the end of the chamber, where the chute was. He scurried out, and shakily opened the incinerator again. However, Rick was strong and had slammed the button so hard that it would not budge.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god,” Craig mumbled under his breath in horror. It had only been one day, and this subject was already dead. He would be reprimanded severely for this for sure. Also, he couldn’t help but feel for Rick. Even though he had been a cocky pain in the ass who likely had just messed up Craig’s standing with the company through his stupidity, Craig reeled at the thought of being burned alive. It was an awful way to go for anyone, no matter how insufferable they were. Unusually, he began to cry a little, alone, next to the chute. Today had been awful.

“You want him back, don’t you,” A cold but familiar voice hummed above Craig. He looked up and was startled. The wall had opened up to reveal a monitor, and GLaDOS, the facility’s main AI, was watching him intently from it.

“How did you-“ Craig began.

“That doesn’t matter,” the robot sighed, “You want him back, right? I’ll do this one favor. Or, if you’re too ungrateful, I’ll leave him to rot. It’s your choice.”

“How- how-“ Craig stuttered, “How will you do it?”

GLaDOS looked him in the eye.

“Pure. Lesbian. Energy.”

The man paused.

“Alright,” he said defeatedly as he put his face in his hands, “Go ahead, I’ve already been through so much shit today… God I really don’t care what happens anymore.”

GLaDOS began to focus. She thought about how much she loved girls. The energy of her lesbianism was so powerful that it began to open an uneven, magenta portal in front of Craig, sparking wildly. Craig scurried backwards as the body of a man flopped out from it. The new man on the ground was disoriented, and looked nothing like Rick. He was shorter, white, and with less muscle and fat than the original. His fluffy brown hair was a mess, and the man was groaning, trying to push it out of his face.

“That’s not Rick,” Craig whined at GLaDOS, motioning to the person on the ground.

“I never promised you the Rick,” she sighed coldly, “I just brought in a Rick.”

“Hey…” Craig heard a familiar voice mumble below him, “What in th’ hell jus’ happened?”

He looked down at the man who had just come through the portal, who was staring back.

“Who’re you? Where am I?” He said in Rick’s voice. Craig yelped in surprise and scurried back even further, nearly falling off the ledge.

“What is this?” He screeched at GLaDOS, a terrified look on his face.

“I told you, I brought in a Rick,” She huffed, “I’ve just proved the multiverse theory right in front of all of you. You should really be more grateful.”

Craig looked down at the man below him in disbelief. The man was looking back at him in the exact same way. His eyes narrowed.

“Craig?” He stuttered, unable to believe his own eyes, “Is that you?”

This ‘other Rick’ then became more aware of his surroundings. He sat up and noticed the fact that he was bare naked in front of a bunch of strangers. He was the one that yelped in surprise this time.

“What th’ fuck is goin’ on?” He said fearfully, “Whadda y’all want from me?”

“I brought you to an alternate universe, moron,” GLaDOS hissed at him, “Our Rick just died, and you’re here to replace him.”

“What?” The other Rick whined nervously as his voice cracked, “Ya mean I can’t go home?”

Frantically, he stood up, and almost fell over.

“I gotta get outta here,” he mumbled, and began to ran. But he didn’t notice until now that they were up on a high ledge, and didn’t yet have the coordination to stop himself in time. The other Rick hurled himself over the edge, screaming as he fell. Craig scurried over to the ledge in horror as he fell, expecting to see a smear of the poor man on the floor. He thought he had lost two Ricks in one day. But no one was below the edge.

“Hiya,” He heard a voice say behind him, and he turned to see the original Rick, who had just stepped from a normal portal, holding a dumbfounded and stunned other Rick in his arms.

“Wait a minute,” Craig squeaked, “You're dead! You’re supposed to be dead!”

“Gotcha!” The original Rick chuckled as he set the other Rick down and walked over to Craig. Before the smaller man could do anything, he wrapped his large, muscular arms around him, and gave him a long, passionate kiss. And the memories flooded back.

A few weeks ago, Craig had courageously volunteered to undergo a research study on memory loss by the facility. He was the first Aperture doctor to volunteer to be a test subject, because it would surely elevate his prestige among his colleagues. His husband, Rick, agreed to go along with it as well. The goal was to see if seeing a loved one after a traumatic experience can bring memories back, even if the person is made to dislike their loved one while they are under amnesia. Apparently, the experiment had been a success.

“Oh my god,” Craig sighed as he put his face in his hands, “That’s right.”

“Yer back?” Rick chuckled, pulling the man closer.

“Yes,” Craig sighed, partially out of relief, “You are such an asshole. Did you really have to scare me that bad to get my memory back?”

Rick kissed him again, and he buried his face in his shoulder. He could hear all the scientists clapping from the observation area.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” The other Rick blurted, “I wasn’t in on this! This is fake? So I can go home, right?”

“Uh…” GLaDOS said softly, and quickly switched off her monitor. The other Rick looked horrified, and looked around him, disheartened.

“Looks like yer ours now, bud,” The original Rick said, as he came over to him and put an arm around his back. He then planted a soft kiss on his other’s forehead, to comfort him. The other Rick blushed and just looked stunned. Then, a camera came out of the wall, to take an image of the moment a big headway in the field of amnesia research and the multiverse theory were made at the same time. The caption of the beloved image read;

“Happy April Fool’s Day, from our family to yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy April Fool's Day, guys! This was just a short fun little joke obviously that I will keep up until the end of the day, and maybe post it as a separate fic for fun. Here's hope that one day I get to actually writing the real chapter 3.

**Author's Note:**

> I am very proud to present my first public fic! (That I've actually tried on, haha) I will try to update as much as possible, and feedback is much appreciated!


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